French Supreme Court Rules Surrogate-Mother Agreements Illegal

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE,

Published: June 2, 1991

PARIS, June 1—
France's Supreme Court has outlawed surrogate motherhood, stating that it violates a woman's body and improperly undermines the practice of adoption.

In a ruling issued late Friday, France's highest court, the Court of Cassation, endorsed the arguments of the nation's solicitor general that "the human body is not lent out, is not rented out, is not sold."

The court also found the practice illegal because it was "a subversion of the institution of adoption." The ruling came after testimony by Jean Bernard, chairman of the National Committee on Ethics, who argued that adoption must be encouraged "when there are thousands of orphans waiting throughout the world."

"Certainly, it is necessary to fight the terrible unhappiness of sterility, but there are other solutions," Mr. Bernard told the court. " Contracts Invalidated

The case involved a Government effort to invalidate a contract in which a Marseilles woman had agreed to be artificially inseminated and to turn over the baby to the biological father and his wife, who was infertile. The baby, named Marie, was born in February 1988, and the surrogate mother gave up the child, as agreed.

Despite its decision, the court did not order the couple to return the baby, but declared all such contracts invalid.

In 1988, the Minister of Health, Michele Barzach, ordered the three main French associations that recruited surrogate mothers dissolved. It was after that order that the Government began cracking down on the practice.

In the case involving the Marseilles woman, the Paris Court of Appeals had upheld surrogate motherhood. It stated: "Surrogate motherhood, as an expression of free will and individual responsibility for those who do it without any concern for profit, must be considered legal."

The Government appealed, arguing before the Court of Cassation that it should be illegal "to arrange for a child to be abandoned, to reduce a woman to be merely an incubating womb."

In his argument, the Solicitor General, Henri Dontenwille, argued that if surrogate motherhood became "acceptable, as is the case in certain states in the United States, one could start choosing the mother according to the color of her eyes, her hair, etc, and one could thus plan the human race."